


The Touch Of Your Hand

by psalmoflife



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas Shopping, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psalmoflife/pseuds/psalmoflife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Phil go shopping at a busy mall, and the noise gets to be a little too much for Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Touch Of Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> While many deaf people do not consider themselves impaired or disabled, it's implied that Clint does. Some of his internal comments about his hearing loss could be considered offensive.

Clint hated The Christmas Season.

He enjoyed Christmas itself, the excuse to drink lots of hot chocolate and eat whatever he wanted, the exchanging of gifts, and going to visit Phil’s family (on the years they were both able to get away, anyway). But going into loud spaces, like malls and restaurants, had been something of an ordeal ever since he’d been fitted with his hearing aids. The aids worked well - so well that the ambient noise of those spaces, the music in the background and the voices of hundreds of people, were amplified just as much as the person he was actually trying to hear. It was particularly bad around Christmas, the tinny music cranked up and the excess crowds crescendoing in a loud hum buzzing around in his head.

Normally he avoided malls like the plague around the holidays, but the beginning of the holidays seemed to be creeping earlier every year, and he really couldn't put off running all his errands until January. So he and Phil had gone out for donuts and then driven half an hour to a mall that wasn't doing visits with Santa (yet).

He and Phil had split up, ostensibly to get their shopping done faster but also to buy things for each other, and Phil caught back up with him in the restroom near the food court. Sound echoed worse in there because of the confined space, but this particular mall didn't pipe their music into the bathrooms, and the silence was helping to slow the throbbing in Clint’s ears. 

Phil’s brow furrowed when he caught sight of Clint’s face. “Headache?” he signed. 

Clint shrugged. Nothing to be done about it. “It’ll go away when we get home,” he signed back. 

Phil gave him a _really, Clint?_ look and signed, “Take them out.” 

Clint bit down his knee-jerk reaction of “hell no” to consider. They were both done with their shopping and were just going to walk out through the food court to the car, probably with a stop at Starbucks because they both loved the holiday drinks more than they were willing to admit. He hated being out in public without his hearing aids, hated losing one of his senses, but Phil would warn him if something was happening. 

He reached up and slid the small pieces of plastic out of his ears, thumbing the off switches and putting them in one of his shopping bags. (He’d probably forget which bag, later, causing Phil to bitch at him while they sorted through the garbage, but the case was in the car and he hated all the lint they picked up in his pockets.) The removal didn't take him to total silence, but it was pretty close- his hearing loss was severe in one ear and profound in the other, and accompanied by difficulty with word recognition and localizing sound. As high-tech as SHIELD was the aids couldn't fully compensate, particularly in his left ear, but they did a pretty good job, which made it even more noticeable when he took them out than if he were still wearing the market-standard hearing aids that left him missing one word in five.

(Phil knew all this, of course, had been on the retrieval team when he’d had the accident, and had been told about the more personal elements after they started dating, particularly when they started spending the night together and Clint took his hearing aids out to sleep. His only reaction had been to learn ASL and keep extra batteries in his office.)

It was probably a little weird to walk out of the bathroom holding hands, Clint decided, but he didn't really care.

As expected they stopped at Starbucks, Phil turning to Clint with a raised eyebrow. Clint shook his head, and Phil nodded before turning to order for them both. Clint didn’t hate speaking out loud without his aids in as much as he used to, but Starbucks was the kind of place where the cashier always had a question for you, and this particular cashier was chewing gum, which would make lip-reading difficult. 

Clint backed into a corner while they waited for their drinks, trying to avoid smashing anyone’s shopping or stepping on a child, and sighed in relief when Phil approached and handed him the red cup. He took a sip as they wound their way out of the food court. Peppermint mocha with extra whipped cream and sprinkles. Perfect. 

Phil automatically grabbed his elbow when they exited the mall - Clint had never, in his entire life, successfully remembered where he parked his car, and had a tendency to wander around until he stumbled across his vehicle - and gently guided him through the parking lot towards the blue sedan they drove when the weather was too bad for Lola. 

Phil popped the trunk and started loading bags, taking care to cushion the ones that held fragile items, with the same crease in his forehead that he got reading the junior agents’ after-action reports, and Clint couldn't help the smile that crossed his face. 

Phil caught his smile, and raised his eyebrows again in a clear ‘what?’ gesture. Clint set his drink on the roof of the car, then pointed to himself, crossed his arms over his chest, and pointed to Phil. 

Phil smiled back, repeated the motions, then tugged Clint in for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> The sign Clint and Phil do at the end is the longer version of [I love you](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqmiespIQlI). If anyone was curious. :-)


End file.
